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Know someone who emerged from this holiday season with a new tablet in hand—and they now want your advice on what to do with it? An Android device is only as good as the apps you install, so we've drawn up a listed of some top Android apps for tablet newbies.

The apps we've chosen below are not necessarily new or edgy, but we've field-tested them all and find them solid choices for a wide variety of users wanting to get started with some basic tablet tasks. (See our iPad version as well.)

The Google Play store is not overflowing with powerful image editing applications—there are many more apps that will let you pop clip-art cats or Eiffel Towers into your pictures in lieu of doing a simple crop. Fortunately, the recent Google acquisition Snapseed takes itself seriously enough to forego the word art and gives you the essentials like cropping and adjusting exposure, saturation, contrast, and brightness, as well as tools for selective adjust and an “autocorrect button.” There are a handful of modest photo effects that are not too cheesy.

Snapseed allows you to pull in photos to edit from cloud services like Box or Dropbox, which can be handy if you tablet is stuck with only a front-facing single-megapixel camera. Honorable mention goes to Pixlr Express, which Google recommended on its list of must-have Android apps for 2012. Its controls aren’t quite as granular, but it has more creative options that you can’t find in Snapseed, like the ability to add and control color splashes into black-and-white photos.

Enlarge/ DroidEdit looks like a crunchy text editor, but it can manage more than just coding.

DroidEdit is by far the most flexible of the text editors we tried. It's not much to look at, but the options available inside the app make it suitable for both coding and writing. Line wrap can be turned on and off, you can search and replace text, and there's a "writer mode" that turns off autocorrect and turns on a spell-checker. The app has a number of language syntaxes available (C/C++, C#, CSS, LaTex, Perl, Python, and many more). You can change the color scheme of the app to one of the available defaults or set your own and change the font size, but the font style is fixed. Even if you're not a coder, DroidEdit is still a capable and handy little text editor, on the level of Notepad++ for Windows.

When it comes to managing text files, you can have multiple files open at once, and the app allows you to create new folders in the file management system when saving (a feature that's rarer than it should be). The app also provides access to Android's share menu, so you can easily move you file to places including Evernote, Google Drive, Gmail,and Dropbox.

There are two versions of DroidEdit, one of which is free and runs a small text ad in the bottom right corner of the screen, which annoyingly changes every few seconds. We'd get a facial tic, having to sort-of look at that while writing. Fortunately, the paid version of DroidEdit is only $1.99 and has no ads.

Enlarge/ Google Drive was, ironically, a latecomer to the personal cloud storage scene, but it's edged out old timers like Dropbox.

It's hardly a surprise that Google, what with its cloud-based service proficiency, has come from behind with Drive to unseat older and wiser competitors like Dropbox and Box. The app works particularly well on the tablets, with useful options like the ability to create new Google files (a doc or a spreadsheet) right in the app, or sort contents by date or name.

Because Google Docs is now essentially part and parcel to Drive, the Drive app allows you to both open and edit documents without having to hop over to another app. This isn't a flawless process; for instance, when we uploaded a text file from DroidEdit to Drive, we have let it convert to Docs format to edit in Drive. If we don't, tapping the file in Drive will prompt us to open it in another of the text editing apps we have installed.

Drive comes preinstalled on some tablets, so you don't even have to open the Google Play store to get the best of the cloud storage experiences. If you're looking for a bit more security than Drive can provide, that's SpiderOak's strong suit, though its mobile apps usually leave something to be desired.

Enlarge/ Pocket looks great on Android and handles non-text media with ease.

The duel for our hearts between Pocket and Instapaper is a remarkably close one. Pocket, an evolution of the tool formerly known as Read it Later, just barely edges out Instapaper for its ability to handle images and videos with a little more grace.

If this category were simply for choosing a reading app, this would be a dead heat. Both Instapaper and Pocket allow for resizing and changing fonts, changing color schemes, and have seemingly useless brightness tuners. Pocket's font sizes extend farther down into the smaller sizes; Instapaper offers more font choices, the ability to change line spacing, and more granularity for column width. Both allow users to perform bulk actions on their content; Pocket offers tags for organizing, while Instapaper offers folders.

But Pocket allows users to save videos and images and view them within the app. We don't see ourselves using Pocket for images, but we've saved videos to Instapaper a fair few times, knowing it was little better interface-wise than sending ourselves a link in e-mail. Pocket doesn't cache the video for offline viewing the way both Pocket and Instapaper will create offline versions of articles for reading, but we appreciate not having to redirect the app to its own browser, or relocate to Chrome, just to watch a video.

imo.im (free)

Enlarge/ imo is a great chat client, not least for its breadth of service integration.

Walk away, AIM app. Go home, Facebook Messenger. Imo.im is able to handle both types of these accounts, in addition to Skype, Google Talk, and Steam. There's also an option for Myspace, in case you just can't let go.

When you provide imo with your account information for the above services, it will display each entry along with an on/off switch to let you log in or out. If you're logged into more than one account at a time, imo displays all contacts in one combined tab, while a second tab holds your past chats. The app offers options to log conversations on imo.im.

With some messaging apps in the past, we've had problems where one or the other will hijack messages exclusively, rather than letting it ring through to any locations where you may be logged in. Thankfully, imo.im doesn't do this. Instead, when you receive an initial message, imo.im will display it on the tablet, but won't continue threading the conversation through itself if you answer somewhere else. Your mileage may vary depending on the service, but we haven't had this problem with AIM, GTalk, or Facebook chat.

Enlarge/ None of the streaming music apps for Android look particularly great on tablets.

Andrew Cunningham

To be entirely honest, none of the apps for the major streaming music services have really been optimized for Android tablets—they're made for phones first, and it shows in their sparse layouts and overabundant whitespace. For this category, then, the content is probably more important than the apps themselves, and both Spotify and Rdio give you plenty to listen to (our recent shootout between the two will give you more insight into each service's social features and tie-ins to their respective desktop clients).

Honorable mention: The downside to both Spotify and Rdio is that, after your trial period has expired, each will want $9.99 a month to grant you access to the service on your phones and tablets. We think that for most people that is a price worth paying, but if you want something a little more freePandora is still a good choice if you don't mind the advertisements.

There are plenty of touchscreen games we could recommend here, but rather than talking up Fruit Ninja or some other staple we'll be kicking it old school with one of those timeless time-wasters: Solitaire.

Of the many, many versions of this game available in the Google Play store, MobilityWare's Solitaire is the best—it's clean, simple, and optimized for tablet screens in a way that some of the other available versions aren't. The biggest drawback is probably the full-screen ads that run in between games, especially since there's no in-app purchase or separate version of the app that can be used to disable them. They don't ruin the experience, but they are annoying.

Honorable mention: It's an unfortunate fact that Android's game library still lags behind the iTunes Store—if a developer can only target one mobile OS they generally choose Apple's, and the games that do appear on multiple platforms often appear on the iPad or iPhone first.

The situation is slowly improving, though. One of the most recent iOS ports to hit Google Play is the $4.99 Eufloria HD, a laid-back take on the real-time strategy game genre, but if you're looking for something quicker to pick up and play there's still nothing better than Halfbrick's Jetpack Joyride.

Enlarge/ Google Chrome is the browser to beat if you're running Android 4.0 or better.

Andrew Cunningham

The Nexus tablets include Google Chrome as their default browser, and for good reason: it's a great browser that renders pages accurately, sticks to a vigorous update schedule, and can sync bookmarks, open tabs, and other information with its desktop counterparts. If you've got a non-Nexus tablet, you can easily switch from the stock browser to Chrome by downloading it from Google Play (as long as your tablet is running Ice Cream Sandwich or Jelly Bean, anyway).

Honorable mention: Firefox for Android is also solid contender, and if you use Firefox on the desktop it will also sync your data. Mozilla is also running some interesting experiments in the beta versions of the browser, one of which is an HTML5-focused app store.

Enlarge/ AccuWeather for Android strikes a nice balance between readability and information density.

Andrew Cunningham

Traveling in the winter can make you acutely aware of the weather in a way that you aren't in your day-to-day life, and apps that tell you whether you can weather that weather are of the essence.

The one we like best on a tablet's screen is the free ad-supported app from AccuWeather.com. It's got a nice, big, readable interface, and it's easy to swipe or tap a button to pull up hourly or 15-day forecasts, maps, and videos. The animations aren't as smooth as they might be, but the fact that the app has been updated specifically for 7-inch and 10-inch screens puts it ahead of the rest of the pack. Notifications for severe weather and other configurable alerts are also available, as are a couple of different widget sizes can be set to give you information at a glance.

As in the music app discussion, the content available through an e-book app is a very important part of the discussion. Unlike music apps, however, you're going to spend a lot of time in these apps actually reading books, and a poorly-optimized tablet app is harder to forgive.

In both of these respects, Amazon's Kindle app has the edge. The app itself has improved greatly since we looked at it in our Nexus 7 review, in large part because Amazon added new, smaller font options that make books look much better on 7-inch and 10-inch tablet screens. It goes without saying that the size of Amazon's e-book library remains unmatched, at least if you can stomach the DRM.

The Android app still lacks a couple of features available in iOS and on the Kindle Fire—the X-Ray feature, which allows you to look through a book to see all of the occurrences of certain words and names, is probably the most glaring omission—but reading Kindle books on an Android tablet is a much better experience now than it was even a couple of months ago.

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Andrew Cunningham
Andrew wrote and edited tech news and reviews at Ars Technica from 2012 to 2017, where he still occasionally freelances; he is currently a lead editor at Wirecutter. He also records a weekly book podcast called Overdue. Twitter@AndrewWrites

I still use Firefox for Android (and desktop), mostly for the sync ability. I know Chrome does this too, but I like FF and I'm getting to old and crotchety to change now.

Only issue I have with it is that it seems to bog down on my Transformer Infinity. No idea why, other than maybe a plugin issue. Not having the same issue on my Note.

I was in the same place, FF for the desktop and FF on the phone/tablet but it kept getting slower on the phone/tablet so I made the switch to Chrome... it's worth the pain of doing, if you have a spare afternoon, do it.

I've given up on FF for Android also. Big, bloated, slow and buggy. Insists on telling me what my start page option should be. I guess they didn't look at Opera Mini to see how to do it right. I now use a mixture of Opera, Chrome and Dolphin, any of which are better than FF.

If you're looking for an ePub reader that actually renders the css in the ePub properly, your only choice is Mantano, which also includes a PDF reader and a very capable system for managing the notes you make. All of the other readers (and I've tried all the major ones) seem to have gone down the brain-dead path of over-riding everything in order to give the user a spurious sense of control over the layout. Moon+ offers a crippled 'publisher formatting' mode that scrolls the page and doesn't allow highlighting, but only Mantano manages to render the book the way it's supposed to look.

I agree that Evernote deserves a mention - tablet-optimised and pretty slick. But my top app these days is actually Currents - Google's free RSS reader has improved so much I've stopped using gReader.

Wow, all the whining about "fair treatment" to Android users every time an iPhone app review article comes out must be having an effect.

There is an Apple section on this website where you can get Apple propaganda. Over there you can pretend there are no other mobile OS in existence. So why are you over here taking up precious time that could be spent over there preening about how iOS is the greatest, bestest ever!

The (Kindle) Android app still lacks a couple of features available in iOS

Like basic things like page flip animations. This was one of those "oh look" features the Kindle app was using to encourage people to use their app and sell more eBooks, but they never ported it over to Android. In the end, the Kindle for Android is a poor iOS port that glaringly shows.

Idk about other features it's missing but I for one am happy there are no page flip animations in the app, those animations are just annoying peacocking that occurs between pages.

Yes! Thank You. That is such a useless feature. Plus Kindle allows the use of the volume buttons for page turning so I don't have to leave smudges all over the screen.

Perfect Viewer with its PDF plugin has been my go to for a PDF comic reader. The only problem originally was digging through all the options (and there are a ton) to switch the "page forward" and "page back" swipes and touch areas, since they are originally oriented around Japanese reading (I think) and use left for next page and right for previous page. Otherwise it's a perfect app, and the presentation and controls are completely customizable.

Also been playing a ton of Berzerk Ball 2. The original was iOS only. It's a "launcher" game, where you hit something a certain distance, unlock upgrades, hit it further, and so on. Great time waster.

If you're looking for an ePub reader that actually renders the css in the ePub properly, your only choice is Mantano, which also includes a PDF reader and a very capable system for managing the notes you make. All of the other readers (and I've tried all the major ones) seem to have gone down the brain-dead path of over-riding everything in order to give the user a spurious sense of control over the layout. Moon+ offers a crippled 'publisher formatting' mode that scrolls the page and doesn't allow highlighting, but only Mantano manages to render the book the way it's supposed to look.

I agree that Evernote deserves a mention - tablet-optimised and pretty slick. But my top app these days is actually Currents - Google's free RSS reader has improved so much I've stopped using gReader.

I use Mantano also, primarily for the decent EPUB handling. Also, for $1/month you can sync all your epubs/pdfs and their respective notes/highlights/etc. Excellent app, although their handling of EPUB XML is still not up to par with iBooks.

Eye in the Sky Weather is a great app if you don't like AccuWeather (like myself, saw battery performance drop when I tried them first), plus Eye in the Sky has a great (customizable) widget.

I'd also recommend Taptu and Pulse for news (also check News Republic).. Sportscaster if you want a sports widget.. TuneIn Radio Pro and AmazonMP3 to compliment GoogleMusic.. Netflix/HuluPlus/HBOgo/WatchESPN..

The (Kindle) Android app still lacks a couple of features available in iOS

Like basic things like page flip animations. This was one of those "oh look" features the Kindle app was using to encourage people to use their app and sell more eBooks, but they never ported it over to Android. In the end, the Kindle for Android is a poor iOS port that glaringly shows.

Idk about other features it's missing but I for one am happy there are no page flip animations in the app, those animations are just annoying peacocking that occurs between pages.

I mostly agree, but they do serve a purpose: It shows you as your starting to flip the page, so you know that you are doing that.

I have an e-ink Nook as well (no animations), and you can flip the page with a swipe. But it's easy to accidentally flip a page, and you only know what direction by swiping forward and seeing if you recognize the page.

That said, a simple black bar on the side that's about the flip would also tell you.

If you play any sort of acoustic/electric instrument or sing, you absolutely must take a look at PitchLab Pro. You cannot purchase -- for any money -- a tuner that does what this *free* software can do. I think one of the best features is its scrolling spectrogram. You can play that tricky part of a piece and see if you got the pitches accurately -- there are vertical divisions for each scale degree -- seeing visually if you're scooping to one note or consistently hitting another a bit sharp, etc. Takes several seconds to scroll down the screen which is perfect for woodshedding.

I don't understand exactly why you recommend AccuWeather as a tablet application. Yes, it works on a tablet, but in my view it is an app clearly built for phones: It does not make good use of the available screen estate (everything is just bigger), and the application is always shown in portrait mode. Even when I have the keyboard docked to my tablet, the application is shown rotated 90°, and it refuses to work in landscape mode. In my opinion, it is not a good example for how things are supposed to work on tablets - certainly not a "must have".

Agreed that the app is meh, but it is excellent to install as a Widget on your home page.

I always check app permissions before downloading, because some want access to more than they need. For instance Moon+ Reader and Radaee PDF Reader, both 4-star apps, want access to phone call info. Makes me wonder what they do with it.[/quote]

Moon+ Reader explains this in their FAQ. It needs to know about incoming phone calls so it can silence the text-to-speech function if a phone call comes in. I assume its the same with Radaee.

Opera browser is available on Android, and for me was the obvious choice as the best browser. It allows itself to spoof as a desktop browser, so you avoid those awful mobile sites. Also you can enable Opera Turbo to conserve bandwidth and load pages faster.

Google Chrome might support these features as well of course, I never checked as I prefer Opera.

Dolphin also supports PC page layouts, via two functions known as " user agent" and "fit to screen" (unchecked this option).

In fact, Dolphin allows almost any user agent, including ios as another included one, plus any custom user agent, providing you can Google search the one you want and copy and paste the "URL" style user agent code into the required box.

However, I think Dolphin still requires the now defunct flash player all in order to allow flash content to play.

It's all well and good reviewing Android apps, but has anyone from Ars had a meaningful exchange with Google engineers about the "Insufficient Storage Available" error you inevitably run into when you try and update your many installed apps?

I used to have 82 apps installed on my Note (original version, 1GB RAM and 16 GB storage), now I have 66, all because I couldn't update my installed Apps due to the "Insufficient Storage Available" error. So, my less used apps had to get deleted.

I'm starting to wonder which of the apps I use regularly will have to go the next time I get this error.

Apparently, iOS and Windows Phone OS don't have this problem, it is just Android.

If you want to root your phone, you can get round this problem, but why, as a normal consumer, should I have to delete apps or root my phone just so that I can update Google Maps or Facebook or any other app that I have installed?

I used to be a die hard supporter of Android, and would recommend an Android phone to anyone, now I'm seriously looking at a Windows phone when I upgrade.

All because (according to the information that I have read on various forums) Google only have a 400MB partition for apps, downloads and other data used by the OS.

The stock Jellybean browser is WAY better and faster than chrome, and is syncable.Also the Nook app is so much nicer than the Kindle (although if you're looking for customisability you can't beat Moon+ Reader.)

signed in and commenting for the first time to second that the Nook app blows the Kindle app away.

The stock Jellybean browser is WAY better and faster than chrome, and is syncable.Also the Nook app is so much nicer than the Kindle (although if you're looking for customisability you can't beat Moon+ Reader.)

Do you know how to get the stock Jellybean browser? On my Nexus 7 the browser installed by default is Chrome (never liked the look of Chrome) and "Browser" is not to be found in the list of apps.

I would definately add ArkMC application.When I bought my Kindle Fire - I didn't have any media there. And I doesn't have any memory extention cards!But then I have found ArkMC application https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... l.arkmc.gm which give access to all the media stored on home PC and NAS.

My experience with SpiderOak is very good. It allows me to sync/backup any folder in my computer. It backs up every version of my files, and deleted files can be found in its recycle bin. And, I like its "Zero Knowledge" privacy environment which is the most secure sync solution I could find so far. In addition, it works on all major operation systems available on the market. Regarding to deleted files, they can be removed from the recycle bin easily on the "VIEW" tab in SpiderOak.

If you sign up SpiderOak through the following link and we both get 1GB extra storage!http://goo.gl/QS1T7And, use the promo code "WorldBackupDay" to get extra 5GB for free. That is 6GB in total.